The Silent Night After the Party
by MidnightCereal
Summary: Welcome to Misato's Christmas party, the only place on Earth where people have more baggage than Santa Claus on Christmas Eve! Two or three-parter. Please, Lord, two...


Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

The Silent Night After the Party: The Stirring Creatures

By MidnightCereal

Gendo had regrets, many of which he hadn't been aware until now. They came flooding into him, inundating his cement foundation, the gusset plates and rivets that held him together after Yui had been taken from him. He'd drown in them; he knew that now, deep in the husk of the red moon. Gendo sank to the elevator floor. Even as he ascended its helical shaft, the voices lilted up after him, the infinity of children stretching back to its mother below, now awake. The sound resonated with the oozing stump of his right wrist, that eternity of pain harmonized with revelations that crushed his head between his knees.

He should have gone to the damn party.

* * *

"Christmas happened when I was five," Shinji began, projecting trauma from his blue 70 mm eyes. "It happened at my uncle's house, you know. Yes. I was so happy. My aunt, she made sushi cakes with too much avocado. Never mind where she had to go or what she had to do to even get salmon back then. Maybe that was why she overdid the avocado. Do you think that's why?!

"Father didn't come. Of course he didn't, you know that. But he got me a present. A bird, Misato, that walked on the floor. I know it was from him, because it was dead inside. So, so silent. Going on my socks with that dual pee and poo thing that birds do at the same time. I would have named it Samuel. The bird. Something was wrong, with the way it looked at me. Like I wasn't there. With that cold eye, like blown black glass, like a dying star…

"It bit me…except that it wasn't biting me, Misato, do you understand? It was infecting me. With his sadness. The bird. Samuel, the biting white Finch. It did what it had to. Over and over. And the next morning, it found where I was hiding in the crawl space, but not to bite, though it did that, too. But this time, after the biting, it whispered my name and flew away." He finally blinked. "I never told anyone that last part."

Misato got down from the step ladder.

She laid the bag of plastic holly on the floor, slowly unclenched Shinji's fist, and removed the staple gun from his hand. "I'm gonna go talk to Asuka. Okay?" She rounded Shinji, careful not to bump him. Certain people at certain times needn't much to be toppled over. "Give the staple mate a rest if you don't want to find a lump of coal in your stocking."

"Father gave me coal once."

"La la la!" said Misato, covering her ears. Asuka had reorganized her room into an apocalypse of white doilies, ribbon, and hot glue. Sohryu never would have agreed to make decorations had the Horaki girl not volunteered to come over and help, but credit would be given where due.

"Ow! What'd you kick me for?!" Asuka yelled up at Misato.

"You told Shinji that I invited his father?"

"What? Please." Asuka lobbed one of her finished doily ornaments at her. Crushed cinnamon and flower petal shrapnel exploded against her shin. "You act like he'll actually show up instead of watch us in his creepy office on some hidden camera." She snapped a glare to a corner of her room. "Isn't that right, sir?!"

"You girls hear stapling?" Misato asked.

Asuka pulled her leg back in and shook it awake. "We're running out of cloves, by the way. I told you six ounces wasn't enough; thanks for listening, Major Cheapo."

"Hikari, all my staples are on a little box on the couch. Get them, please."

"They…they can really see us?" Hikari's eyes danced over Asuka's bookshelf and the stack of glamour magazines wearing half a dozen bras. "And hear us?"

"Oh, no one cares that you like Suzuhara, okay? Staples." Misato said, planting her hand in the small of Hikari's back and shutting Asuka's door.

"She cares, you bitter old cow," said Asuka. "And Shinji's dad is like, the tallest Japanese man in the history of history. Gott, the gloves, the glasses, that pedo beard…the boy would have known eventually."

"Yes, _eventually_." Misato swept some of the Christmas debris off of Asuka's mattress and sat down. "Like when I would have told him an hour before the party began. But now he has the whole afternoon to think about it and stare at the walls and hyperventilate into a paper bag."

"And tell us about his fucked up pigeon."

"He got you with that too, huh? Christ…" Misato shook her head, "that was weirder than usual."

"Now you're just being redundant." Asuka smiled, just like she probably read how to in a book. "Just admit it, you didn't think this all the way through."

"I invited Fuyutski, didn't I? I had to invite the Commander. He's the Commander…" Misato picked up a tissue angel with crippled wings. She fingered its double ply gown. "I know he's not coming. That's not the point. It's Christmas. Everyone deserves to be _invited_…"

Asuka tied off another ginger and nutmeg grenade, and eyed her. "Would you invite your father?"

"Of course I'd invite him," scoffed Misato. She stood and dusted plastic snow off the back of her legs. "He's dead, isn't he?"

* * *

The truth was, Touji had first thought Kensuke had gotten hit by a perfume truck. Then after Touji had to walk ten blocks with the asshole, ambergris vapors curling off Aida in waves so pure they had a street value, Touji hoped Kensuke would just get hit by a perfume truck.

Six blocks later, they stood at Rei Ayanami's front door.

"I hate you," said Touji.

"I bet," answered Kensuke. He tugged at the strap of his satchel and poked the buzzer. "You're just mad because I thought of the idea and you didn't."

"Mad? I'm just happy you didn't come to the hospital with me. Mari's got allergies like you won't believe. Last thing my sister needs is to turn into a puffer fish on Christmas." Touji peered through the heat haze at a crane-o-saurus stooped over Aida's sandy mop. The hammering from behind Kensuke spawned punctual earthquakes Touji could feel rippling through Rei's third-rate walls.

"What are we doing at this crack house?" asked Kensuke. "You said we were going to Ayanami's place."

"This is her place." Touji checked the folded piece of paper in his pocket. "I mean, it's the right apartment number..."

"How do you even jam that much mail together like that?"

"Beats me." Touji buzzed the door and frowned. "You really can't smell yourself?"

"Sure, just ask me to circumvent millions of years of evolution. For your information, people start to become oblivious to their personal scent the day they're born."

"That is not your 'personal scent', you smelly dick."

"Oh." Kensuke pushed his glasses back up on his nose. "In that case, you're just a hater."

"Anyone ever tell you that you sound like _what's wrong with you_?" Kensuke was halfway into the apartment before Touji grabbed a fistful of the boy's camo-aloha shirt. "You can't just go barging into a girl's place!"

"What does she care? It's not like the door's _unlocked_ or anything."

"Wow…" Touji looked Kensuke up and down, "stalker much?"

"Get off my case!"

"Look, chicks always run ten, twenty minutes behind, it's in their genes or something. She could be taking a shower. Or walking around totally naked; they can do that."

"I can smell you," the apartment informed them. To Touji, it sounded a lot like Ayanami. In his nightmare. The one with the machetes.

"After you," said Kensuke.

* * *

Misato tripped over a bramble of chino pants as she shut her door, and dialed. A hissed Kaji, a growled Ryoji, and Asuka would be in here, hopping at the phone like a circus jackal begging for pig scraps. Sad. For whatever reason, Misato had entirely missed that phase of adolescent stupidity… oh, right, The Apocalypse.

"To whom have I been beckoned?" Kaji answered.

"Oh my God, I already want you to shut up." But Misato laughed, secret muffled puffs in the dark. "I'm actually glad you're late this time. I need you to pick up some, um, cloves."

"Most likely I'm inviting some sort of pain when I say this—"

"Then don't," she warned. "They're only for decoration. Here's to the potluck taking care of itself."

"Everyone's bringing their share of food, don't worry. Finally you can count yourself lucky you work with a bunch of stifled anal-retentives."

"I always count myself lucky I work with Ritsuko," she said, and listened closer. Teeth of static snapped at her ear. "Are you outside? It sounds like you're in the convertible."

"I don't think the Geofront counts at outside – you can almost see the thermals in here. Commander Ikari has me taking care of something, first."

"He can't take care of 'something' himself?"

"Sorry, blame me if it makes you feel better."

"I will," said Misato, rolling an empty beer can on the floor with her heel, and then crushing it. "It does."

"I'm in the directive-flaunting mood, believe me, but in this case the big guy gets what the big guy wants."

Misato hugged her knees and keeled sideways. "I wish he could get bent."

"Now, now, Major," he cooed, the eye in the center of gathering noise, "you don't really mean that, most definitely on a line that's being monit—"

The howling became physical, crested, and crashed onto his voice. Misato heard garbled smooth talk before Kaji drowned in interference.

"Cloves, Kaji. Cloves!" He'd forget. But who cared? What were a few less pouches of spice that Asuka should have taken more care parsing out in the first place? The little Yankee. Misato righted herself, yawned. She wouldn't say anything about it when he got here. Whenever that would be. "Soon," she whispered, and slid open her door.

Asuka stared at her from across the threshold. "'Soon', what?"

* * *

"Thank you so much for the ride again," said Ritsuko.

Maya flicked her right turn signal and smiled. She'd smiled a lot since she'd picked the doctor up from her flat on the east side of the city. Sempai didn't have to thank her, of course. She was doing Maya the favor of accompanying her to Major Katsuragi's party – the small privilege of seeing Sempai in something other than her white lab coat. The red v-neck cardigan Akagi wore over a white tee-shirt flattered her, as did the indigo jeans that flared out over the blonde's black slingback sandals.

Maya called it Academic plus One: Hide her glasses, swap out the 10-cm heels for some white Chuck Taylors, and Sempai's a mere Post-Grad. Drinking buddy. Flat mate. "It's awful trying to drive up all these hills at night," said Ritsuko, her red nails popping the denim drum of her thigh. "Those crossbeams, I swear. I think I need new glasses."

"Hitomi seems pretty set with her contacts." Maya merged into traffic and measured a safe distance between themselves and the car ahead of them. She fought keep her eyes on the road. To the right and below, the city was a star field, electric constellations churning over the world. Beautiful. The world was beautiful. "Ever heard of a Takeshi Ando's Eye Care Center? Let me talk to Hitomi, give you the number. I'm not a regular but I had my eyes checked there in June. Great guy."

"Who is?"

"The one who checked my eyes."

"Really?"

"He was telling jokes the whole time, which got me through the glaucoma test. Where they blow the air right in your eye? I hate that test. Funny jokes, too."

Sempai angled her shoulders. Maya flicked her eyes over and found the woman's green eyes searching her face. "Tell me one."

"I can try. He had this one about ships, and how there were different kinds of ships and one of them was an ark and the other…I already screwed it up. But he was professional, Sempai."

"A great guy."

"Uh, yeah."

"Ritsuko, please, just for tonight. I call you Maya. Every time you call me Sempai all I think about is Ikari chewing my ass off."

"Sorry. Of course."

"So you know a great guy who's also an ophthalmologist?"

Maya's foot quenched into a cold, stiff alloy. She managed to keep the cringe she felt from creasing her skin – couldn't say Christmas miracles never happened. But that ascending gossip-girl arpeggio in Sempai's voice, that wink Ibuki saw in the dark even as she read the bumper sticker off the dented ass of a ten-year old Subaru … "How old is he?"

"Not like that, I mean. I just appreciated him…" Maya braked around an embankment with precipitous designs, "how good he was at his job."

"Of, for…" Sempai rooted through her purse and pulled out her phone. Maya glanced her grimacing and the vibrating piece of plastic. "Such a baby."

"You're not going to get that?"

"I know when we have an emergency, and this is not an emergency." Sempai thumbed her keypad and put set the phone down somewhere between them. "So you admire him."

"I admire all professional, competent people." Maya cleared her throat. "In general."

"And he's nice," added Ritsuko.

"I didn't say he was nice."

"No, you said he was great. I think it's cute, that's all."

"But I didn't mean for it to be cute. It's an accurate assessment of his skills as a professional eye-seeing…person."

Ritsuko surrendered her slender, porcelain hands. "Now, now. Did I say you have to pounce on him from a tree like some starving leopard? Maybe you're just not the dating type, you sure enough don't talk about it. It's none of my business, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn't let you know that you might have stumbled on something…rare?"

"You'd be a pretty good friend." Maya groped her dashboard for the a/c dial, that dead plastic knob somewhere above Sempai's thigh. She'd have killed for a little tactile response.

* * *

"_The Egg is hollow now, breached by the children, they who are writhed in the lonely throng; who are heartened by the wet and supple certainty of their own shells; and who are ignorant of all but the trifling pleasures of that finite sanctuary. But The Egg remains The Egg. It awaits the Sire, He who has at last returned; who has been joined in the empty womb; and who in his joining has sowed the womb. The children exchange fetal pleasantries as The Egg begins to brim. We are bringing the pretzel sticks and paper plates."_

* * *

"Am…am I the egg?" Misato asked, but Rei had already hung up. She sagged down onto Shinji's bed, his toes crumpled against her hip, and looked up at the halo of jaundiced light sanctifying his windowless room. On the other end of the mattress, collapsible shoulders shielded his face. "Rei sounded so weird over the phone just now. You wouldn't happen to know why, would you?"

"No."

"If I had to guess, I'd say it's because she's disappointed in you. I know I am, a trifle."

"What for?"

"Well," Misato rubbed her palms over her thighs, kneading a dry spot above her knee, "your buddies – sweet guys – agreed to walk Rei to our get-together. Can you tell me why I should have to ask them that when the two people she relies on most in the whole world actually live here?"

"It's not me that Rei relies on. Are you disappointed in Asuka, too?"

"Shinji, I wouldn't expect you to have lots of experience with this, so I get why you can't see that Rei just plain likes you. And you know what else?" Misato clapped the arch of his foot. "She respects you. She works with Asuka because I order her to, but that's it. You got a little taste of what Rei was like before you got here, remember?

"I'm sorry I invited your dad. I screwed up, okay? But now it's your turn to apologize to Rei, and I won't take no for an answer."

Misato waited for him to respond, but he'd already been rewound to his first night in the apartment. Back to the door. Duck and cover. Replaying cold edicts and concrete stares. Or back even further. Misato sighed and listened to Aoba's bombast filtering through Shinji's door; if she left it up to the boy, she'd be waiting in here forev—

_SHRIIIEEEK_

"What the fu—" The apartment screamed again, and on the third go at it Misato started to her feet, unplugging her ears long enough to throw open Shinji's door. She coughed as thin sheets of smoke lazed across the hallway ceiling. At last, her life-long dream of dying from asphyxiation was real; and it smelled damn good.

In the living room, Hyuga fanned the top of a vase while Aoba drained a jug of water into its neck. "When I said you two could practice your little—" _SHRIIIEEEK_ "—gic act you didn't tell me it was going to—" _SHRIIIEEEK_ "—my home to the ground!"

"It's not!" Hyuga said. Aoba was _SHRIIIEEEK _the jug at the kitchen tap when the alarm choked off. "It's not supposed to..."

"What's this got to do with Christmas, anyway?" Misato asked. "I've never even heard of cooking food in a vase, but I guess dumb people have dumb traditions."

Aoba crooked his eyebrow at her as he poured more water into the vase. "That's crazy. We're not cooking any food in this."

"That's me, sorry!"

By the time Misato placed Hikari's voice, the girl was grabbing the baster and opening the oven door. Misato padded to the kitchen, catching golden glimpses past Hikari's hips. Inside the oven, something was turning awesome.

They had a baster? "You made a turkey?" Misato asked.

"I'm trying to." Hikari flicked on the fume hood above the stove. Then she bent herself over the thermometer piercing the moist, glistening breast, and shoved her creation back in the oven to get more beautiful. "Everyone says turkey's too dry, but it's not so bad if you soak it in salt brine the night before."

"Who says?" Synapses flashbanged in Misato's brain. "You were here last night?"

"You know, people. All the websites that even talk about brining are in English, so Asuka translated for me." Hikari leaned against the counter and wiped her hands on her apron. "I still have to take it out, tent it. I'm so afraid to leave the thing I didn't want to turn off the alarm."

"You mean Asuka turned off the alarm."

"Asuka's in the shower," said Hikari.

"You know our _alarm codes_?" That snapped Hikari out of her little home economics Zen. Behind Misato, Aoba and Hyuga took turns pointing at the slender pedestal the vase sat on. They exchanged glares before Hyuga broke and slid open the patio door. "Miss Horaki, when was the last time you were home? _Home_ home?"

The kneecap Misato had dislocated in basic training had looked more pleasant than the girl's cowed face. Hikari tried to escape the gentle pressure of Misato's gaze, but she just fractured more. "I-I called my dad, I just, Asuka said you would be okay with it – Tuesday."

"You've been here for three days?!" Hikari nodded, chiseling a smile into her face, and made to untie the apron. Oh, God. This was exactly like fighting a man with glass bones. "What are you doing? Wait."

"If it's not alright, I…" Hikari's voice shuddered to a crawl, "can I stay until after everything's done tonight? Please? Is that okay?"

Okay? Shit, it was apparently glazed and mouthwatering. It was bronzed and falling off the bone. And it was better than Ritsuko's Ass Cobbler. "As long as you call your dad again, and then put me on. Can we do that? All I want is for him to know that you're here and safe."

"Aw, crap," said Hyuga. "We're out of methane."

* * *

Misato, Asuka, and Hikari stood with their backs to the patio and surveyed their wonderland.

Garters of holly laced apartment walls in hunter green swoops. Glass bowls populated the living room and dining area, piled high with cinnamon and frankincense bundles. They had commandeered a real tree, a Golden Crest 1.2 Asukas high. Its branches bowed with ornaments dangling like ripe sparkling fruit in the living room. An aria floated out over them from Asuka's mini stereo system, atop PenPen's fridge; Misato would never have guessed the girl listened to anything so temperate, so…appropriate.

And the angels. Quilted tissue darlings, paired off, preparing to fuss over holiday revelers from book cases, tree branches, inside closets – places they could reach only if they had that dollop of the fantastic that allowed them to fly. Asuka had arranged them wonderfully.

Then Misato saw the angel bent at its waist on the coffee table, its tissue frock thrown over its hips in anticipation of a cherubic pounding from its partner standing behind it.

"You are so repressed," said Misato. She looked at Asuka as long as she dared, and went to go change into her Mrs. Claus outfit.

* * *

Misato answered the door.

And blew a kiss.

"Merry Christmas, fellas!" She flared her hips out to the side, planted her hands on them, and winked at Touji and Kensuke. They were young enough that their ogling never became creeptastic, and it was Christmas. Two reasons as good as any for a little innocent flirting. "I don't know about Santa, but fetching Rei for me definitely puts you two on my good list!"

"Uh huh," said Touji.

"Frp," said Kensuke.

They trundled through the door, their faces white with awe and eldritch cheer. Rei brought up the rear with a bag of paper ware and snacks. "Major Katsuragi."

"Uh, Merry Christmas, Rei." Misato shadowed the girl back to the kitchen, where some of the partygoers spilled in from the living room. She recognized crew and bob cuts, barrel chests and B-cups, contacts and bifocals, cradling drinks and eyeing the treys of food queued up on the counter. And they recognized her. Misato smiled tightly back. Then she tugged the faux fur trim of her velvet skirt further over her stockings. "Rei, on the way, did you happen to say anything to them they might have deserved…?"

"I for tolled the wet rebuke of the tandem sin, thus heralding Instrumentality. The knowledge of Completion is mankind's final birthright."

"Alright, high five!" said Misato.

Rei looked back at her. "I don't understand."

"That makes two of us …hey, let's go see your friends!" Misato steered Rei by the shoulders to the television, where Asuka was already gesturing at the Suzuhara boy's beltline and smirking. Kensuke yipped at Asuka from behind Touji while Hikari considered the angels dry humping on the TV stand. "Will I have to find something for you guys to do so you don't end up tearing each other apart?"

"We could find out where that stench is coming from."Asuka said. "It's like a skunk trying to be people."

Misato didn't know what Asuka was talking about, sniffed the air, and then did. "Like a _dead_ skunk trying to be people."

Touji sloughed Kensuke off of his shoulder and smelled his shirt. For a moment, Touji's face was pain. "Do you think I can use your phone?" he wheezed.

"Sure, the one in Shinji's room. But talk to him first. You too, Mr. Aida."

The boys wound their way through crowd, visions of teargas dancing in the heads of those they pushed by. Asuka plucked an ice cube from her cup and popped it into her mouth. "Like a dead skunk trying to be _dead_ people."

"Kensuke's gone," Misato said. "You can stop now."

"I never stop."

Hikari inspected her socks and smoothed a crease in her wrinkle-free khakis. They were very nice khakis.

* * *

Misato answered the door.

And sagged.

"Oh, it's you."

The fresh glow illuminating Ritsuko Akagi's face dimmed. "Merry Christmas to you, too, Misato."

"Merry Christmas, Major Katsuragi," said Maya.

"Sorry, it's just that Kaji hasn't shown his face yet."

"Maybe he's just tired of you punching it in all the time," said Ritsuko, untucking a bundle she'd been cradling against her ribs. "But I brought a little something that might cheer you up."

"Oh, is that your nasty cobbler? Awesome!"

"Classy." Ritsuko patted her hip with her free hand, and swore. "Maya, can you take this in? I left my phone in the car."

"That's alright, Sempai, I'll go get it."

"_Ritsuko_ – think of it as an exercise in counterconditioning."

"That is so adorable." Misato held the cobbler while Ritsuko removed her shoes. "Fit this wherever you can find space in the kitchen and let Hikari worry about laying everything out."

"You're talking about the nice one that likes the tall boy who wound up in Shinji's plug?" asked Ritsuko.

"She is being such an effort queen today. But who didn't go out of their way for a guy when they were young. Right, Ibuki?"

Misato smiled at Maya, who laughed heartily.

* * *

Misato answered the door.

And leered. It was Kaji's own fault for bending over like that.

"Can't wait 'til everyone clears out, Saint Dick. I'll show you my bags of goodies if you show me your north pole." Then she grabbed a morsel of his ass and squeezed:

Raw chicken breast caked with flour.

A burlap sack gorged with dates.

Old leather wrapped over a week-old cantaloupe.

Wrong.

Kaji stood up, turned around, and was Kozo Fuyutski.

"Oh my God! Commander, I didn't, from behind you look like – "

"Don't explain, Major." The old man toed his shoes from his heels, handed Misato a bag with a bottle of wine inside, and put some distance between himself and his subordinate with two long strides. "I'm ordering you to never explain."

* * *

Maya found Ritsuko's phone wedged in her front passenger seat. She pocketed it in her twill skirt and walked into the first floor lobby of Misato's empty complex, which was lively as a warehouse full of headless mannequins. The Major thought a man lived on the second floor, but his car never materialized in the parking lot. Maya was studying the untamed leather club chairs and unmanned service desk in the lobby when the phone shivered against her thigh. She shivered when she read the name on the front display.

**Gendo **

**Dec 25 Fri 6:58 pm**

Well, it didn't get more important than that. Was he who had called Sempai earlier? Maybe. No, most likely. No one beneath the doctor had run any tests today. The HQ-wide alert system hit up all essential personnel in the event of an Angel attack, and Maya's phone hadn't ringed. But why would Commander Ikari call unless it was essential?

Plenty of reasons. An update on the recommissioning of the Pribnow Box. Rei's neural feedback test results. Not mission critical just yet, but not exactly trivial. Maya breathed. Sempai had it under control. Sempai was First Tech Division, and she reconciled the high priority with the irrelevant.

The phone buzzed with voicemail. Maya walked slower. Had Commander Ikari left other messages? If he'd called her in the car, Sempai had peeked at her phone, huffed, and stuffed the matter away.

And if the messages weren't important, what did it matter if Maya listened to them?

The leap in logic didn't bother her as much as she thought it would. Sometimes you grew your hair out, let yourself be sold a dirty thought. Sempai wouldn't be here and ignoring messages from the Supreme Commander of NERV had that not been true. Maya knew a bad example when she saw one, and she made up her mind to follow it. She thumbed the **Messages** key and selected **Received Calls**.

Maya stopped walking.

**Gendo **

**Dec 25 Fri 6:20 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 24 Thu 10:29 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 24 Thu 09:12 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 24 Thu 05:45 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 23 Wed 11:48 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 23 Wed 07:33 pm**

**Ayanami R**

**Dec 22 Tue 10:00 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 22 Tue 09:58 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 22 Tue 09:06 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 22 Tue 04:17 am**

**Gendo**

**Dec 22 Tue 02:25 am**

**Gendo**

**Dec 21 Mon 10:11 pm**

**Gendo**

**Dec 21 Mon 08:44 am**

Maya scrolled through, eyes scanning the names, the times. The times. What could he want to talk about at two in the morning? What could he want to say at four that he couldn't say at two? Did Sempai talk back? She exited the list and jumped over to **Dialed Calls**.

Maya sat down. She scrolled through Thursday. She rolled back Wednesday to Monday to Sunday. To the beginning of December, into November. The name.

**Gendo**. Not **Ikari** **G**. Not **CDR** **Ikari**.

Such a baby. Sempai's baby…

Maya laid the phone on the arm of the chair and wiped her face. What was she doing? She should have been back upstairs already, handing Sempai her phone, vetting Major Katsuragi's 'Disgusting Cobbler' assertion, swapping tech gossip with Hyuga and Aoba – the things that excused her parents and brother in Fukuoka getting on each other's nerves without her. _Enough adventure and acid reflux for today, Ibuki, up and at 'em._

Maya picked up the phone and swung over to **Voicemail**. She skimmed through **Saved** **Messages** – not much chance Sempai would recall listening to mail at a time she didn't even have her phone.

Then Maya picked one: last Monday night. She and Doctor Akagi poring over Asuka's core data. Caspar's forced convection fan stuttering off and on. The Magus flooding their command nest in Central Dogma with processing heat. Open collars. Melted ice cubes. Sempai leaving her to it, muttering about fresh air. Reasonable. So reasonable…

"_You need me between you."_

End of message.

What an odd thing for the commander to say.

The leather groaned beneath her. Maya looked up. The polished, undulating ceiling pulled her face into taffy abstractions. She couldn't tell what she was feeling. Or remember getting up, walking out to her car, or shifting into drive. She cruised a few kilometers out before she turned around. Right, the phone. Sempai's phone. Maya had to gopher it up to Sempai, uh, Ritsuko. And she had to take Ritsuko home. That, too.

The elevator swallowed her. At some point she must have opened the front lobby door and walked through the emptiness. With no voices to speak to you or hands to touch you, the space just drifted by you. Talk about your analogs for not existing.

_You need me between you._

Maya opened her eyes. Asuka appraised her at the door of the apartment the girl shared with Katsuragi and **Gendo**'s son. The pilot found her lacking. "Are you coming in or not?"

Wasn't that the plan? Maya floated to the dining area, drinking in the heat of all the smiling, laughing computers processing digital recordings and alcohol…

Coarse sand compressed in Maya's brain. It formed a purpose worth a tad more than the wedge sandals she'd kicked off at Katsuragi's foyer. The foyer. She turned back, watching Ritsuko and the Major extract their heads from the store room and sic their eyes on her, their words. Something about how she had missed them on the way in, maybe – the world was static and conch shells. She put her ear to it and listened…

_You need me between you._

Maya watched her hand fish something from her pocket and present it to Ritsuko. She presented her smile, her back. The kitchen beckoned, though she found it impossible to not be in the way of the little brunette cyclone in pigtails. Maya pinched herself into a corner when the girl fussed over the contents of the oven. The heat reached out to her, searing the pearl gestating behind her eyes.

Liquid. Maya needed phase changers, brain coolers, steam makers. Too late. She melted in the corner, her edges softening, her peak sinking down to the linoleum. She threw out a wet, thawing palm to slow her descent and tagged something on the counter. Closed around it. She read the label on its bulbous body.

**MOUNTAIN CROSSING**

**Junmai Daiginjo Sake**

**Sudo Honke, Inc.**

**Obara, Kasama, Ibaraki **

Maya put the bottle down and watched Hikari. The girl looked up, sacrificed one of those freckled smiles to Maya, and went about stabbing the contents of the oven with a fork. Maya looked around. She saw two and a half dozen faces turned to each other, shoulder bumps, elbow rubs, the whole of them trapped by socializing **if** statements and subroutines.

Maya picked up the bottle. She dropped it in a paper bag and toed a crease in the beige tile until she reached the edge of the living room. Back at the storeroom, the Major excavated boxes while Ritsuko stacked. She stepped onto red Saxony carpet, danced by a debate over Yu-Lin Black's rocket attacks in North China. She absorbed an elbow to the breast, the omega wolf leer, the sincere apology

Maya stepped into Major Katsuragi's bedroom. Then she closed the door behind her, and opened the bottle to fix her program.

* * *

Shinji propped an elbow long enough to flip his pillow. He lowered his head, blinking blearily at the wall.

Then Kensuke continued. "And you know how Ayanami never combs her hair? Does she not care? It's like she's saying, 'it's a free country, Aida, go ahead and run your fingers through this.' I almost did."

"Dude, shut up for like, five seconds," hissed Touji. He piqued, put his ear back to the phone, and paced again. "No, gramps, I wouldn't tell you to shut up. And I wouldn't call you 'dude'…"

Kensuke backed into the foot of the bed. He cocked his chin chestward, strung out on teenage fantasy. "And the school uniform thing…Ikari, you've been to her place. When she opens up her closet is there just a row of pressed uniforms, one for every day of the week? I mean, I'm not going to look if I don't have to."

"No, the Lucky Ducky blanket in the closet…because when Mari goes 'I don't know, I'll see', she means 'yes, I want it now'…" Touji spun in the corner, stomped to the center of the room, and sat down. He stood up. "God, there's only _one_ closet. Maybe I should come back, it's…I _am_ having a good time—"

"And her calves! Holy balls, you ever see those things up close? Of course you have."

"Quit freaking out, it's just the saline drip... you _were_ freaking out…yes you were, and stop yelling in front of her…shut up, you _were_ yelling!"

"It makes sense, with the g's you guys pull. And still it's not like she's a hard body or anything. I bet she swims. Does she swim? I bet she plays tennis."

"In a skirt," added Touji. He glared sideways at the phone. "Why the hell would I say to put her coloring books in a skirt?"

Kensuke grinned. "In a miniskirt."

* * *

Asuka waited a full thirty seconds before peeling Hikari from Shinji's door.

"Wait, Asuka, I can't hear what they're saying!"

"Do you really want to know?" asked Asuka. "If you want something to talk to him about, tell him about that undercooked dinosaur in the oven. Guys like dinosaurs _and_ things that bleed."

"That's just it, it's not done yet. It's supposed to be, and…" Hikari tucked her fists under her chin and planted her shoulder blades in the wall. "I even made one before, for practice. I don't know what I'm doing wrong this time."

"Wrong? That's easy. This, and this..." She touched the gold teardrop dangling from Hikari's ear; pried open Hikari's fist to reveal a file of cerise pink nails. Asuka crooked her fingers into quotation marks. "So has he showed you his 'compassionate side', yet? Has he even said hi? You think it's about hooking you two up, and it's not. It's about getting this over with as soon as possible."

"I disagree," Hikari whispered.

"Obviously."

For a while, they watched the crowd pull itself into a line that ringed the living room. The line drained into the kitchen, where it segmented into men and women scooping food out of aluminum trays and rice cookers. A song and a half faded out on Asuka's boom box before Misato pushed through to the pair, carrying the oldest pizza box in recorded history. "So this is where you've been."

"What're you blaming me for, now?"

Misato's jaw hung down for a moment before she drew it back up. "Commander Fuyutski brought a bottle of sake here."

"So?"

"It's missing. I'm just asking if you might know where it is."

"And you think I _might_ have taken it? I _might_ have hidden it somewhere? Because I _might_ have borrowed a case of beer from the fridge like, seven weeks ago?"

"Oh, who's this?" Misato tilted her chin up and held her nose. "'He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven.'"

"Yeah, Misato. _Beer_. _Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude, _hello? We don't drink sake where I come from."

"I drank sake all the time when I was stationed in Germany!"

"And I don't sound like that." Asuka crossed her arms under her chest and pouted. "Like a mouse with a sinus infection."

"Alright, I'm sorry. Here…" Misato shoved the box into Asuka's stomach. Mangy knots of dust peeled off and danced in the air.

Asuka was pleased. "Eww! What the hell is this?"

"Stop being difficult," Misato sighed, "you know what Scrabble is."

"I know that I know. It's in English."

"Of course it's in English."

"And how many of us you think could diagram a simple English sentence, let alone know fifty English words? No offense, Hikari."

"No, it's true."

"Was I in a coma the day they stopped teaching English in school?"

Asuka gave her head a slow, mournful shake. "You…haven't met our teacher, have you?"

"I have, actually." Misato blinked off whatever memory she had replayed. She waved at the decrepit box and sighed. "Look, it's all I have, okay? I would've let you have Uno but Aoba called it first. And look, this way all six of you can play together."

Asuka frowned. "Six?"

Misato stepped aside. Behind her, a girl with short rust-red hair clasped her hands while rocking back and forth on her heels. Asuka twitched. Hikari gasped, "Oh, wow! Merry Christmas, Nan, uh, Nanaha…"

"Mana. And same to you, class rep," the girl said, and turned as Misato positioned herself to rejoin the adults. "Miss Katsuragi, I know a little English. Maybe I can help talk the others through it."

Hikari beamed. "Hey, now we can play on even teams!"

"Hallelujah, the dream is alive," said Asuka.

"Check. You. Out, you little man-eater!" Misato fingered the embroidered shoulders of Mana's sleeveless white blouse. "Aren't you going tell me where you got that outfit?"

"And what you did with the kneepads?"

"Asuka!" snapped Misato.

"You're the one who called her a man-eater."

Mana about-faced and fired back a smile. "Merry Christmas, Asuka."

"I don't do Christmas."

"Happy Holidays, Asuka. Do you know where Shinji is?"

Misato cast off, thrusting forked fingers at her own eyes, and then at Asuka's. Asuka shrugged and buffed her fingernails on her arm. "It's a mystery. My guess is he's hiding somewhere around here – because you came."

"Gee, are you sure about that? He's the one who invited me, after all."

Asuka stopped buffing. "What?!" She shoved past Hikari to throttle something invisible and stupid in front of Shinji's door. Then she spun, opened her own door, and slammed it behind her.

The hallway filled with music, conversation, and Asuka setting her bedroom on Tumble Dry. Hikari edged over to Mana. "Kneepads?"

* * *

Ritsuko dropped another wonton onto her plate before shuffling clockwise around the kitchen. She waited until Fuyutski had finished spooning more sushi rice before tapping him on the shoulder. "So what excuse did His Exaltedness end up using for not coming?"

"Oh, you know," Fuyutski shrugged, "'urgencies that flying reindeer and the exchange of gifts cannot remedy'."

"He didn't say that, did he?" Ritsuko spooled shrimp soba onto the communal fork. "Well Bah, Humbug to that. Everyone likes presents. I don't care what he says."

Fuyutski's hand hovered over the tray of wontons, then returned to his side. He shuffled right. "It's really not a Gendo Ikari thing, Doctor."

"Considering what Misato told me about Shinji, it's not an Ikari thing, period."

"Not with most of them, no."

"I feel sorry for him. Now, Professor, you're going to do me two favors: forget I brought up work, and eat some of the cobbler."

"Easily done, Doctor." Fuyutski smiled after Ritsuko and waited until she left the kitchen to examine the results of the recipe she had murdered. He shook his head. "Didn't have a chance," he muttered.

Someone slipped a slender arm around his own. "It really isn't as bad as it looks," said the owner of the arm.

"Oh, you've tasted it?"

"I don't have to." Maya stepped back and gave Fuyutski a thumbs up. Which became a thumbs down. Which she plunged into the middle of the cobbler. She removed her thumb, sucked the mess off it, and offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Maya."

"…I know."

Three watt recognition flickered in her eyes. "Oh, then you must know Ritsuko! I work with her."

Fuyutski checked the ceiling for a hidden camera, and sighed. "You know, Lieutenant, I look around and all I see are young smiles, smiles like yours, kids—" Maya belched like a bull elephant seal. "Kids with their whole lives ahead of them. Fun just comes to you at your age. I'm glad to be here, of course, but you know what they say about old people being anywhere."

"You mean besides the graveyard?"

"Lieutenant, your fun didn't happen to come out of a one-liter bottle of premium Sudo Honke sake, did it?"

"That is a weird thing to want to know." Maya excavated a plateful of cobbler and sucked her teeth. "A weird weird weird weird weird…why are those angels doing it behind the pork casserole?"

Fuyutski moved to the end of the line. Maya moved with him. He sagged. "I'm beginning to understand that it's just the soup du jour."

"I like jour," said Maya.

* * *

Misato punted a crushed beer can to her bedroom window, and waited.

"Mochi-mochi," answered Kaji.

"Hey there, Plays-On-Words. Guess what I just did?"

"Does it involve getting hammered?" he asked.

"It will if I end up grabbing Fuyutski's antique ass again."

"Sounds like quite the yarn, Katsuragi…a horrible yarn."

Misato shuffled over to her bed, stubbing her toe on one of the legs. She sank to her floor and growled, "I'm serious about the alcohol, Solo. High octane rice wine and dump the rest to the Empire."

"I thought you wanted me to buy cloves."

"Forget the stupid cloves!"

"Ah," he breathed. His world thudded behind him. "They do say a woman's heart is as fickle as the skies of Ganymede."

"Really? I thought they said, 'If you don't quit fucking around and get over here within the next hour, I'll cut you'."

"I better be about it, then." He hissed sharply over low blaring, dull banging. "Say hi to the Sub-Commander's ass for me."

Misato planted a hand next to the bed, brushing against a curved spine of polished nodules. It skipped away from her when she sent more fingers to investigate. Flipping onto her stomach, she stuck her arm beneath her mattress. Misato strained. "There's an awful lot of sirens on your end of the line, Kaji. Sirens and NERV do not mix."

"I'm off the clock, didn't I say? Just trying to cross the street down here on Ginza-3 and nearly got run over by our best and bravest on Big Red Number Nine. Someone lights their tinsel on fire, leaves aluminum foil in the microwave, happens every year."

"Don't get hit."

"I won't."

"I'll cut you."

"I know." He hung up.

"Fucktard." Her hand closed around the spine of knobs, which was actually the round base of a bottle. Misato pulled it out and got to her knees. The bottle was black, large – maybe a liter. She turned it over in her hand until the label faced her:

**MOUNTAIN CROSSING**

**Junmai Daiginjo Sake**

**Sudo Honke, Inc.**

**Obara, Kasama, Ibaraki **

Misato choked the bottle by its neck, shook it. Plucky teaspoons pinged inside it. "Oh, shit," she said.

* * *

Aoba flicked a red 5-card on the table and glanced at the First Child. "You know, Rei…can I call you Rei?"

"Yes, you may," she said, laying a red 8 over Aoba's card.

"Rei, I'm glad you could play with me and Hyuga. I'm having fun."

"I'm enjoying the card game as well."

Aoba smiled at her as Hyuga sacrificed a blue number 8 from his fan of cards. "It's good to hear you say that. I really mean that. You know, I never really get the chance to talk to you. I don't talk to any of the pilots often, but with you…" Aoba slapped down a blue number 6, "look, can I be honest?"

"Yes, you may."

"Well, seeing how hard you work and how professional and serious you are all the time, you're just so dedicated. A little beyond reproach. Intimidating, actually." Hyuga snorted as Rei laid down a green 6. "Not much. Not at all, really. A little. It's just that I never got a chance to talk to you. Like a person."

"And it is only now that you have spoken to me that I appear human?"

Aoba balked and averted his eyes. "I'm sorry. Wow, that came out so wrong. I already knew you were like a person – I mean, that you were a person…_are_ a person."

"Aw, man," said Hyuga, taking a card from the top of the deck.

"I take no offense, Lieutenant Aoba. I know what you mean."

"You do?" Aoba tossed out a green 2, testing his smile again. "That's great, for a second, I thought—"

"One must always glean the true meaning from the children's words, for they are the clumsy, faceted simulacra of their souls. Only now as The Egg fills do they unwittingly aspire to this candor, and in so doing fatigue the fractious bonds they believed so stout."

Rei laid down a red 2 and placed her remaining card on the table. Aoba blinked. He gaped across the table at Hyuga, who gaped back. Aoba blinked.

"Uno," said Rei.

End of The Silent Night After the Party: The Stirring Creatures

A/N: I would have loved to have completed the entire story before Christmas, but the idea was late in coming. I wrote loose, and you probably noticed. This is about half of it, more or less, and hopefully I'll finish the second half not much later than the beginning of the New Year. So Happy Holidays, everyone.

Random A/N: If you liked this, you have the snowstorm on the Eastern U.S. seaboard to thank for this. If you hated this, you have the snowstorm on the Eastern U.S. seaboard to blame for this. Either way, I wouldn't have finished as much as I did if it wasn't for being snowed in.

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.


End file.
